


Episode 908: Sanguis Sanctus, Part II

by agelade



Series: Lustra: A Supernatural Season 9 AU [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Demon Blood, Gen, Hallucifer, Religious Content, the boy king, the righteous man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 07:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2538848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agelade/pseuds/agelade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something's killing people in Smalltown, America, so what else is new? Sam's dealing, Dean's dealing, and both are keeping their secrets, but when Sam takes off before the hunt's even done, some secrets will find their way into the light of day.  Part Two of the Two-Hour Special.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

** **

 

 **Episode Eight**  
" **Sanguis Sanctus, part II"  
Chapter One**

_**Thirteen Days Earlier** _

Sam frowned at the possessed Mr. Gill, looked around. He couldn't just kill the guy, not in broad daylight, and he wasn't that interested in whatever lie the demon was peddling. He didn't really have time to mess around with this guy before the innocent grieving civilian came out of the house to join him for lunch.

" _Exorcizamus te-_ "

He'd expected the demon to smoke out, leave Mr. Gill and Sam could just go on his way, annoyed. But Mr. Gill just grinned. "Not a demon. Sorry."

"Shapeshifter."

Mr. Gill tilted his head, shrugged. "In a manner of speaking."

A few yards down, someone mowed their lawn. Up a street, a bunch of kids played in a sideyard pool. The sun beat down on them, bright colors, smell of someone's garden, cut grass, chlorine, sunscreen. Mr. Gill looked around them, sighed. "I know. I know how much you want to rip my heart out. But that's going to change."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. When you come with me."

Sam frowned. The shapeshifter was a bit round around the middle, he wasn't jumping that hedge any time soon, and he definitely wasn't outrunning _Sam_.

"I know what you're thinking. But I know something you don't know, Sam Winchester."

"What's that?"

"I'm not alone."

Sam felt the sting before he had quite connected the dots - a tranq, and he was going down. And around him "Mr. Gill" was calling for help saying Sam had just passed out suddenly, and a minivan with a soccer mom in it - but no kids - stopped and they waved onlookers off with talk about how they'd take him to the hospital and of course, of course, there was no case here, there was no case here, there was only a trap, a trap for the kind of person who would investigate these murders like they were something unnatural. A trap for hunters.

A trap for Winchesters.

* * *

He awoke slow. Tested his joints, his freedoms, without moving enough to alert anyone. Just like Dad had taught them, a habit that had kept them safe over and over, a habit he'd never tried to buck, not since Stanford, not even with Amelia. He was strapped down at his wrists and ankles. He was on a cot, mattress thick under his probing fingertips, a pillow for his head, cloth between his skin and his bindings, a blanket over him. His head pounded, his chest ached.

There were sounds, people. They didn't sound like they were going away. So he opened his eyes to slits. The light in the room was too bright.

"Turn down the lights," someone hissed, and the glare vanished. The shadow of a person beside him turned back to him. "You're okay. You're okay. Probably got a killer headache, don't you. I have some asprin here, some water."

Sam pressed his lips together and watched her, angry and feeling slow.

"Constance, come away," said another woman. Her voice was familiar. She walked into his field of vision and he frowned at the woman in red. Natalie.

"You."

"Shh." She sat in a chair next to the cot and folded a napkin in her lap, stained red, Sam recognized it as the handkerchief she'd used to dab the blood from his neck when they met two days earlier.

"You semmeup." Sam blinked slow. Felt slow. She'd drugged him.

"I didn't want to have to do it this way. I wanted to talk to you that night, but you were so distant, and then your brother showed up-"

"What'd'you wan'?" He blinked hard. Willed himself to stay awake. He had to find out what she wanted. Had to figure out how to warn Dean off.

"Oh Sam..."

Her voice faded, his eyelids were so heavy, his head pounded.

He woke again sometime later. Slow. The room was dark. _Dean?_ God, his head. He tested his hands, feet, freedom, found himself bound and he was alone and it came back to him, that he was trapped, a struggling animal and he had to escape-

"Don't fight." The figure stood in the doorway of the room, in the dark. When it stepped into the room, Sam frowned. The bad boyfriend. Of course. Partners in crime.

"Not going to say anything, Sam Winchester? The Boy King."

Sam stared, cold. "That was a long time ago," Sam said. "And it never happened."

"Yes it did. For a couple of glorious days, he was on the throne." The bad boyfriend strolled around the room. "Did you know we were his favorite pets? Did you know he kept us and named us-"

"You specifically? No, he didn't mention." From the corner of his eye, Lucifer winked at him, appreciated his sarcasm. Awesome. The bad boyfriend whirled on Sam, then stalked a circle around him.

"All of us," the thing said. "Demons, he hated. Humans? Pathetic. But us? We were his favorites."

"Ahh, that. Yes, I do remember something about that." Sam shook his head, faux sympathy. "If only _you_ knew what he was thinking that whole time. How disgusted he was by you, how he couldn't wait to set you on one another for his entertainment."

"You're lying."

Sam shrugged. It probably wouldn't be good to get him too angry, but he just couldn't help himself. Running his mouth like Dean would have done. Oh be fair, Sammy, you were a smartass from day one.

"You're _lying_ -!" it said and was suddenly on him, clawing into his chest. Whoops.

"Frederick."

Sam's strangled cry echoed into nothing as the silence settled. Frederick stalked off back to the doorway, and Natalie strode toward Sam. She wasn't human, obviously. Sam couldn't tell _what_ she was. She stroked up his leg with a manicured fingertip, stopped at his waist and laid her hand on his stomach. Her hand was hot through the fabric of his shirt, hotter than human: _Fenix? Firewallow? Mother-of-lace?_ None of them were hard to kill - well, maybe the fenix, if you didn't have a copper-plated weapon laying around, and if you didn't know how to do the spell that turned them back into a fox, and if you didn't know to cut off the tail and burn it in copper sulfide and sea salt. But Dean knew all that. _Probably._

"What do you want," he said.

"Feeling better, I see?"

"Answer the question."

She looked down at him, smiled a little. "We got what we want."

Sam knitted his brows. "Dean won't fall for this-"

"Oh, honey," she said, and she had a kind of southern drawl. Northern Mississippi? Fenix for sure, then. Juuuust great. "This isn't a trap."

"Whatever it is, I won't do it."

"You won't have a choice."

 _You always have a choice, Sam._ Sam closed his eyes to get himself under control. The cold was always seething just under the surface, and in it swam Lucifer, waiting in the wings, yearning to be unleashed for even a moment, to have control, to bathe in the blood and make Sam watch- Sam exhaled and opened his eyes and stared at her. _Even if it's only to choose what you let it do to you._ "My brother's gonna kill you."

"Your brother has no idea where you are, and he's not coming for you. He's not even _looking_ , not after the great talk we just had."

Sam frowned. "What?"

"Honey, you'll be lucky if he tries to call you ever again. I don't even suppose he'll pour out a whiskey on your grave once a year." She leaned in. "But it's better to be hated, isn't it? He won't be all torn up with grief when he realizes you're gone for good. He won't waste his life looking for you. He'll be happy to be rid of you." She blinked at him and raised her brows. "Oh yes, I've been inside that head of his. That boy can't _wait_ for you to go and stay gone. He's been watching your ass for what, thirty years now? That year he spent away while you were with grandpappy, that was the best year of his life. He misses _Purgatory_ when the alternative is you."

Sam stared. That wasn't true. It wasn't.

She smiled at him kindly. "The point is, he won't miss you. It won't hurt. I know you care about that. I know it would kill you if you thought he was pining, if you thought he was killing himself to retrieve you. So I took care of it. Reminded him of certain things. See, I want you to be as healthy and happy as you can be. I want you to live a long, long life here with us."

Sam watched her. She was lying; creatures lie. About Dean leaving him there to rot. She probably wasn't lying about what she said to Dean, no. If she was a fenix, and it was pretty likely if she was talking about Purgatory and stuff, Dean would never have talked about it voluntarily, she - god she'd _kissed_ him at the police station, that had to have been her in. She could read him, she could read Dean that way. That was what a fenix _did_ , got into the heads of the people closest to their victims, ensure they'd fit seemlessly into the hole their victim left.

And god, the crap she could dig up to rile Dean all over again. The guy never gave anything up, he just _decided_ not to worry about it anymore. All it ever took was one misplaced look or word or whatever, and Dean was ready to fight about it all over again. She could figure out what upset Dean the most and just push on it.

But but, she could only _skim_ Dean, she couldn't do _that_ much damage. There was nothing she could say that could have made Dean hate him more than he had after Sam had sprung Lucifer, and Dean stayed then. Kinda. Basically. When Sam still didn't answer his phone after like three days, Dean would figure something was wrong, or at least try to find him to make Sam apologize or something. She was lying to get him to comply, she was lying about Dean leaving him to rot.

Right?

"So what do you want?" he said.

She tsked. "I already said. You. You, Sammy. This was all for you."

"I don't get it. You don't want to kill me, you don't want to use me to get to Dean." She just watched him, waiting. Tempting him to figure it out on his own. "So it's... something you want _from_ me. Me specifically." She smiled slow, greedy. Well, there were lots of things _destiny_ had marked him for - none of them good. But Lucifer was in a cage, and yellow eyes was dead. His visions had only ever been about his family or other psychic kids, and they stopped when Yellow Eyes bit it. The Trials were pretty much impossible for him to complete and they made him less of a threat than a baby with a bible. He wasn't useful to some baddie, he wasn't even in play anymore.

He shook his head. "I got nothin'. All the special in me is gone, lady."

She licked her lips. "You got special in you," she purred. "Well. You will."

Sam knitted his brows. That didn't sound good.

She smiled at him, turned and gestured, and Frederick was back. "Gently, now," she said, stepping back and out of Frederick's way.

Frederick sat on the side of Sam's cot, gripped him at the jawline. "Come on," he said, voice low.

Sam glared, wrenched his face out of the thing's grip.

"Come on. I got a treat for you." Frederick produced a vial, dark red, thick, and when he popped the cap off the tube, the sulfur tingled on Sam's tongue, prickled at the back of this throat. His breathing hitched, eyes wide, but he was over this, over this, he was never giving in again. Frederick grasped at his jaw again and Sam pinned his lips closed, bit down hard on the inside of them and tasted his own blood, glared even as his vision lost focus, and even when Frederick dug his clawed fingers into Sam's injured shoulder joint, when his hips lifted in agony as his back arched, he kept his mouth shut tight.

He had managed Lucifer. This thing would not break him.

"Enough, Frederick," the woman said. "Take his blanket, no water until this time tomorrow." She came up to Sam as Frederick cleared away the supplies. Her fingers were hot, hotter than human on his clammy cheek. "Please, my King. We would make you so powerful. Tomorrow, do not fight."

* * *

The night passed. Hours away from the stash in his bag. His chest was so heavy, his head ached beyond what the tranq had done to him. The pounding pulse of the Trials pulling away his strength, souring his stomach, twisting weeds into his lungs, burning through him blood and bone, the stench of rotting meat.

Sam shivered. It was summer. He wasn't outdoors. But he shivered and he sweat, and he dreamed fever dreams while he was wide awake.

_Not dreams, Sammy..._

The ceiling above him vanished into a pinpoint of light, dozens of them, constellations of hearts he'd made. They'd collapsed in on themselves, imperfect things, under the weight of the flaws in them, he couldn't help it, he couldn't make anything right. The raw materials were imperfect in the first place.

Too open under the stars, there were entire worlds he had created and watched as they developed and destroyed themselves, spun into oblivion or just self-destructed. Populated with people who could only grow black weeds in their chests. He could only give them his own heart, his own raw materials, and they grew black weeds in their chests, they grew black weeds in their gardens and they betrayed each other and killed and died and failed. Little worlds that Lucifer gave him, because it pleased him to watch when Sam's little universes collapsed over and over, millions of little lives Sam could not contain could not defend could not make correctly.

Sam heaved a breath. He could not bear to be suspended in that space, surrounded by failures. Somewhere there was a tiny city of bones and sinew that his clockwork mice lived in, somewhere there was a small place to burrow into, to feel pressing on him, a place that didn't pull him apart like the ever expanding universe, that didn't let him drift apart into molecules because god knew there wasn't enough substance inside him to keep him together unless there was something pressing in from all sides-

Sam squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn't suspended in the universe. He was strapped to a cot. He didn't know where, and he didn't know why, but he knew they were trying to get him to drink. Maybe they needed a weapon against demons? A demon-monster war they hadn't heard about? With all the chatter about the angels, it wouldn't have surprised him to find out there were problems they didn't know about.

But he felt too light still, even grounding himself, even gripping the mattress he was shackled to. He focused on Dean, on the burn of Dean's anger, because she thought she understood them - she _knew_ Sam, sure, but she didn't understand anything. Dean pissed was a Dean that would burn the world to find Sam, if only to force him back into a space Dean created for him, to watch him, to keep him human, to watch the weeds grow, to tend the garden Sam couldn't be trusted to tend himself-

He shook. With the effort of staying present, with the knowledge that there was no _present_ , with the cold and vacant void, a fourth dimension in which everything inside him spread out on the surface, and inside of _that_ there was the essence of Sam, a thing that screamed and fought and burnt and broke and twisted-

He gasped for breath. His head, his chest, god his heart ruined and small now after peeling off so many little bits to try to give another thing life.

Light came. Day, around the blackout curtains drawn over the windows in the room where he was bound. He saw it without knowing it, his body awoke with it while he spun off somewhere else.

_Wake up!_

Sam blinked. Lucifer perched - full body now, for the first time since Amelia he seemed solid - he perched on a desk in the room, tsking at Sam, shaking his head.

"This is pathetic."

Sam didn't answer. He was just a memory, a hallucination. If he wasn't, how could Amelia just lock him away?

"Unless I'm just letting you believe you can control this for now. It's always a lot more fun to watch you squirm, Sammy. I mean come on. Really? A woman you run into when you're desperate and alone just _happens_ to be a psychic shrink?"

Sam turned his head, blinked his eyes slow, mouth open. God he was thirsty. If it was light again already, it'd been at least twenty hours since he'd had anything to drink, coffee yesterday morning, and he knew he had a couple of days before he had to worry, but there was fire in his veins and sick in his stomach and his head god, and the heat and he shivered and he couldn't breathe-

"Awake, are we?"

She was real. The woman in red. Natalie. Lucifer was a weak enough presence that he blinked away when she showed up. Sam was almost grateful.

"This is difficult, I know."

Sam frowned at her, looked away in irritation. "Just let me go. You're making a huge mistake. I'm not gonna work for you, even if you do..." He swallowed. He could still taste the tang of demon blood on his tongue, after just the smell of it.

"Work for me?" She tilted her head. Sam could see now, in the light, how her eyes glinted gold at a certain angle. She shrugged. "I guess in a manner of speaking..." She smiled at him. "My King. It is our pleasure to serve _you_."

"You kidnapped me. Set me up. I'm tied to a _bed_ ," he said, pulling on his bindings in mounting frustration to illustrate, "And _you're_ serving _me_?"

"Like I said. Difficult. Sam." She brushed hair from his face, tucked it behind his ear. "Give in. Help us. You are a noble King, I know it. Just... _become_. And you'll see you have a legion ready to serve you."

"I'm not a king!" Sam growled. "You're half a decade too late for this, and anyway, I'm not _your_ king! You're not a demon. "So _why-_ "

She sat up straight. He'd offended her. Wow. "A demon? No. Not yet," she said primly. "You want to know the hearts of your worshippers? It's simple. We don't want to go to Purgatory."

When she looked at him, Sam saw the woman who saw him as her hero at the police station, the woman who wanted to connect with him in the car. She was fucking _sincere_ about this.

"You should have seen it," she said, looking off. "Chaos, fear. Terror in every home when we learned the truth. Where we go. It wasn't common knowledge, we thought we just... ended. But a few years ago, when the Leviathan surged through the world, we learned the truth. And now we know. We have souls. Not like you humans, or even like angels have grace, but we have something. And it goes to Purgatory because it doesn't belong anywhere else. But do you know what Purgatory is? It's a prison, designed by God to hold the Leviathan, the absolute evil. Do we really belong there? Shouldn't we get a chance to ascend into demonhood-"

"You want to be tortured for millennia and be turned into demons?"

She was quiet a moment. "We're going to be tortured either way. At least Hell gives us an end to it, a way back to a world we know."

Sam blew out a breath. "Look, I feel for you. I know what Purgatory's like. But I'm not drinking that stuff. I'm not your king. I'm not leading your cult. It wouldn't work anyway."

" _I_ lead the followers of the faith, Sam. And I have a responsibility to my flock. We have been waiting for you for a long time, my King-"

"Five years isn't a long time, believe me."

"For centuries," she finished. She leaned in, serious as eternity. "Only recently, we learned what our fate really was, but we have always waited for you to save us from what we believed was a fate of nothingness. Don't you see? Your rise, our discovery of the truth? It's not a coincidence. It has been foretold that someone who walks the Path will be crowned King by the demons, and that human will be so filled with light he would shine as Lucifer shines, into every dark space. He would bring an equality to the fates of those of us who did not choose to be born like this, or to be turned into this. That fair minded leader drenched in blood and bathed in smoke is _you_."

Her words whispered into him, it felt like they sank into his skin, and the habitual allure of being able to _help_ someone, after so long of having to earn redemption, having to find every scrap of "having helped" in order to earn a place at Dean's side, to earn a spot amongst the living. God it pulled at him, a more deeply ingrained addiction than the demon blood which had been lying in wait for him since he was six months old, because he could justify ruining himself to save the world and fix his own mistakes, but he could not justify wedging himself into a world he had no right to be in-

But he couldn't. He _wouldn't_ be taken in by this roiling drive inside him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not your King."

Natalie stood from his bedside, watched him. "Then I'm sorry too. Perhaps one day you will resign yourself to this, you will rise to this. Until then." She shrugged. "Constance will be your personal physician." She gestured and the girl who'd given him water and asprin the day before came up. "Drain him, slow. Be careful with him."

Constance nodded, then came with her satchel and pulled the chair over. She looked frail, kinky airy curls around a brown face, but whatever kind of creature she was, it had strength. She twisted his arm still strapped down; he grunted and struggled, but she just shushed him and turned it anyway, held him still while she inserted a needle and a line and told him to remain calm or he'd bleed out. Kind, dark eyes, a sweet face, gentle hands if strong, and then a warm trail against his arm where the line ran down out of sight and he was concentrating on his fleeing heart.

"Please," he said.

"Rest, my King," she said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Episode Eight**  
" **Sanguis Sanctus, part II"  
Chapter Two**

The windows were darkening by the time she came again with Frederick in tow. Constance had stayed by Sam's side, pinching off the line now and then - Sam knew what she was doing. A slow periodic loss of blood ensured that he wouldn't lose too much, and he wouldn't have time to recoup the energy. He wasn't supposed to be strong enough to resist Frederick this time.

Between the lack of water and the blood loss, the Trials breaking off pieces of his lungs and his swollen itchy heart, Lucifer racing along his neural pathways, he could barely even lift his head.

Natalie shooed Constance away and sat in the chair. "Sam?"

"No."

She closed her eyes, little disappointed shake of her head. "Fine. Frederick."

Sam struggled, oh he tried, bit his lips together until they bled, but Frederick dug his fingers into Sam's shoulder and this time his mouth opened. This time his body burned with fatigue, he saw stars and his hands shook and his head, god. Frederick dumped the vial of thick red into his mouth and clasped his hand over, held tight.

Sam held onto it in his mouth, the hot tang, and everything in him strove for it. But he was stronger, he could wait it out-

"Make sure he swallows," came a voice. Sam recognized it from somewhere, craned his neck to see. He didn't need to make the effort; Tim Janklow stepped into his line of sight and gave him a little salute.

Sam's eyes went wide in question, but then Frederick's hand shifted, covered his nose, pinched it closed and he was suffocating.

He held out as long as he could. He twisted and turned to get out of Frederick's grip. He'd have rather drowned on it than drink. But his body betrayed him; he swallowed and gasped for breath around Frederick's hand, panted as he felt the blood work through him. His nerves, his old injuries, something in the back of his mind unknotting like a long-unused muscle. He lay there, hands working into fists and straightening out again, a stuttery fit, his fingers wanted to move, _he_ needed to move. He was fast becoming too big for his skin. He remembered this.

"Give it ten minutes," the woman told Constance. "Then give me a pint." She murmured some other instruction Sam couldn't hear, then bent over him, smoothed away some of the substance from the corner of his mouth, slipped it in past his lips, slicked it off on his bottom teeth. "Let it do its work."

And she was gone.

Ten minutes later, Constance opened the line in his arm. The trail that ran across his forearm burned hot; he burned hot. He didn't remember it feeling so intense. Maybe because he'd come so close to being purified by the Trials? He had questions. But he blinked and the ceiling had vanished. He blinked and Constance was a blurred face. He coughed and for once it didn't bring up blood. He slept.

* * *

"Shh," Frederick said.

He thought it was Frederick, he'd only seen a few people in the hours he'd been held captive - Natalie, Constance, Frederick, _Tim_ whose voice he'd now never forget. Must have been Frederick.

"Tim... Tim..." Sam tried, but he felt blurry.

"Sold you out, yeah. Now shush." Frederick clicked on a lamp in the room, sauntered toward Sam with a knife in his hand.

"What are you doing?"

"Calm down, now. I just want a sample." He knelt at Sam's side, looked at him. "Wasn't easy to find you," he said. "We've been lookin' for a couple years. Got kinda eager once we found out about Purgatory, ya know? Then Tim shows up, tells us he's got a line on the boy king."

"Tim wouldn't- He's a _hunter_ , he wouldn't-"

"You think you know for sure, huh." Frederick tilted his head. "Me and Tim were hunting buddies, did you know that? Steve was my cousin, did you know that? And me and Tim... we got turned on the same hunt." Frederick leaned in. "Did you know that?"

Sam held his ground, glared. "What gotcha?"

Frederick watched him. "Nightwalker."

Nightwalker. Even as his backbrain catalogued it - _nightwalker: fed on blood, ran in packs, didn't do lineage which set them apart from vamps, killable by drowning in human blood, because hey, irony_ \- his thoughts ran wild. Tim was a monster, Tim was turned, Tim was a nightwalker, Tim had been tracking him for god knew how long, Tim knew what to put in a report to get Winchesters to show up, for that matter, ex-hunter Frederick did too. "Detective Warner," Sam guessed.

"Pleasure to meet ya. Brother of yours is a hardass. Thought he saw right through me, but I been impersonating law enforcement since before you could shoot straight."

"I sincerely doubt that."

"That's right, I heard about you Winchesters. That's a fucked up family, you know that right?"

"Don't talk about my family like you know something."

"Fine. If talking's off the table, I guess it's time to eat." He rucked Sam's shirt up at the side, up to his ribcage, ungentle, swiped the blade down in a fiery slice. Sam hissed. Frederick pressed a fingertip to the wound; Sam stared upward, tried to pull back, but the thing just sank its fingers into Sam's opposite hip and dragged him bodily closer. Frederick showed him his bloodied fingertip, grinned. Popped it into his mouth and his whole body relaxed in something like bliss. "So much better when it's still warm. We aren't allowed to feed. Church rules. You're the exception."

"There's no way your boss is okay with this," Sam tried, breathy, shaky. Frederick was a nightwalker, but he wouldn't turn him, he might kill him accidentally, but he wouldn't turn him-

"Natalie don't have to know." He turned back to the cut in Sam's side and licked his lips, looked positively lustful, Sam squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself, saying "Wait wait wait-"

"And yet she does," Natalie said from the doorway. "Know."

Frederick was on his feet and away from Sam like a shot, his finger shoved into his mouth like he was trying to get rid of the evidence. Natalie spared him a look.

"Control yourself. You're to treat our king with the utmost respect."

Frederick nodded, sullen.

"Do it again and I'll have you killed. Out, now." Frederick left, and Natalie came toward him.

"You can't keep me here like this," Sam said. He flinched as she reached for the wound in his side, inspected it.

"I can." She frowned, turned. Rummaged in Constance's satchel for a pad of gauze and as she patched him up, she said, "It's not what I want, Sam. I have to do what's right for my people. You must understand. There. It's shallow, it'll heal." She pulled his shirt back down, covered him with a blanket, smoothed it over his chest. "We will care for you here. You won't be tied to this cot forever. You will be loved. For everything you've done to save people, for everything that you are, brave, noble, selfless, you will be loved and admired, respected."

_She's reading you, she's saying what you want to hear-_

"Sleep on it, my king. Rest now." She leaned over to press her lips to his forehead and then she was gone again.

* * *

"Gentle with him," the woman said. Moments later? Or it was morning? There was another vial at his mouth, dumped in before he realized what was happening. He squeezed his eyes shut against swallowing, struggled against his bonds however weakly, but there was a hand over his mouth again, his throat worked against swallowing, and he had nearly passed out refusing to swallow, black spots in his field of vision, and then his involuntary survival instincts kicked in and he did it anyway.

"Much better," she said in approval.

Sam blinked at her, dazed but with the dose of demon blood rushing through him, he was starting to wake up, gain strength. It was an unwelcome realization; if he decided to go along with it, he might get strong enough to overcome the weakness of the Trials, he might be able to escape. But he remembered Samhain; the cost was the look on Dean's face, the cost was never being able to go home again. What would he have gained?

"Constance?"

Constance came forward, knelt and Sam felt the tube shift on his forearm, felt the needle shift just the slightest. He turned his head toward it, flexed his hand.

Constance placed her hand over his. "Keep still, now." She ghosted her fingers over his arm, didn't press but just rested them there a moment. "If you feel any discomfort, if this spot begins to feel warm or painful, just let me know."

"Constance was a medical student," Natalie said. "Top of her class. And then she was turned."

Constance looked up at him. Her eyes flashed a bright gold-green a moment before going dark again and then she looked away, ashamed, busied herself checking his pulse and reflexes in his fingers.

"Into what?" Sam murmured.

"Does it matter to you?" Constance said.

Sam frowned. "No. It doesn't matter. You can still be good."

Constance didn't look at him. "My reward will still be Purgatory."

Sam looked up at the ceiling. Dammit. "You have to understand why I can't do this."

"You did it to save them," she said, softly, like she half-hoped he didn't hear her, half-thought maybe she shouldn't say it. There was bitterness.

Sam watched her where she was kneeling, bent over the line. A jagged pink shiny scar came down from her hairline at the nape of her neck and curved forward and around, down, stark against her dark skin, and he thought _hunters_ , and he thought _she's just a girl, a med student, she seemed sweet, what could she possibly have done-_

"We all know the story. What you did to save all of them. You could do it again to save all of us." She turned to him and her eyes were wet and she said, "You wouldn't even have to die for it. You'd be worshiped for it. You'd be our _king_ , we'd _protect_ you-" She cut herself off. Stood. Gathered herself. "He'll be done in about twenty minutes, I think. I need to-"

Natalie smiled at her, kind. "Of course. It's about time for us to travel. Take some time, and then Harold will take you to the church."

Constance left. The line down his arm was warm again with his own blood flowing out of him. The strength he thought he was gaining was being leached away again.

"Thought you didn't want to kill me," he said, trying to slow his heart rate, calming breaths.

"We believe the demon blood will preserve your organs from any damage, will increase your red cell production in reaction to the loss of volume. It will protect you, as it strengthened you when you took on Lucifer."

"And if you're wrong?" He blinked hard. A pint gone from the day before, and now more.

"We're prepared for that. Constance has a contact at the local blood drive. Don't worry. We aren't going to let anything happen to you."

"Why do I have to..." He swallowed. "Drink?"

Natalie Smith's smile turned sad. "Oh Sam. You're a conduit. You have to ... to process it. I'm so sorry it has to be this way. I know how much you hate it." She smiled down at him, hand on his forehead, down his cheek, and then she was gone and Sam was left alone.

Twenty minutes later, he'd already blinked himself awake three or four times, shaking out of some dream to find himself in a nightmare. The demon blood made his heart restless, made him twitchy because he wanted to act, fight, and it just caused him to bleed out faster. Fast enough that when Constance showed back up to pinch off the line again, she took one look at him from the doorway and raced across the room to him with a gasp.

She murmured assurances at him, _calm down_ and _stay quiet_ and _oh my god_ , and then she was detaching something, capping something, and her hand was on his shoulder as he blinked mutely at her, he understood _thank you_ and then she was gone.

He awoke once while being manhandled from the cot, his hands and feet free but no strength to do anything about it. Of course, he thought as the darkness came back. Drain him first, so he couldn't fight.

Mumbling, light and dark, awake and not, careful hands, a dizzy rush, it seemed only seconds, maybe it was, a light smack on his cheek and he opened his eyes.

He was seated in a chair, a padded chair with a high back, a belt buckled across his chest, not that he could move to escape, or maybe it was to keep him sitting upright. Natalie adjusted a blanket around his shoulders. Purple, it was a sort of cloak he guessed, and she tucked another blanket across his lap and around his waist, he realized then that his teeth were chattering. She smoothed his hair across his forehead, tilted his chin to look him in the face, and then she placed a circlet on his head and Sam laughed-

Dean so earnest in his chain mail, the first time they'd had fun together in months after Purgatory, after the horror that was Purgatory for Dean, the twenty-four hour battle these monsters were trying to escape. Dean in a crown laughing, Dean was a king, Dean was the leader, Dean was worthy, no crown for Sam's head, no crown please, never for Sam, never-

He was aware he was dissociated somewhat from the events as they unfolded. They were in a church set up in a muddy field, a revival tent - _where reapers restored Dean, where someone else died to keep Dean alive when Sam couldn't manage it_ \- and around him at the front of the space monsters were setting up. An organ in the corner, lights. Constance was emptying the thick dark contents of a tupperware container into an ornamented porcelain bowl and he knew it was his blood but he couldn't react to it, he couldn't feel anything about it even when she placed it at his feet, even when she kissed his hands.

He watched in a daze as worshipers filed in, monsters and their families, baby monsters, creatures, toddlers, old, young, sick. Natalie, in her customary red, spoke; the words washed over him, words of hope and salvation and joy and then she called up the faithful row at a time to receive the very first communion.

A penitent old man with razor teeth and raised veins on either side of his face praised Sam's name as he drank the mouthful offered to him. A weeping mother sat her child on Sam's lap and encouraged the girl to kiss Sam's forehead. Sam leaned his head forward to accommodate and thought _she doesn't know she doesn't know_. Two hundred people sampled his blood that day. Two hundred people pressed their lips to his hands, his feet, his forehead in thanks, in praise, in hope for something better.

* * *

They put him to bed with the cuffs around his wrists and ankles again, but he felt the gentleness with which they buckled them, how they carefully placed the soft cloth between the leather and his skin. His stomach turned.

Constance tucked a blanket over him and tipped blood into his mouth. He twisted away, he bit his lips closed, he squeezed his eyes shut and fought _hard_ , until he felt his shoulder separate and slide back into place and then no matter how he turned, she was able to bring him back to face her and eventually she slipped the sulfur tang between his bleeding lips. She shushed him, she placed an ice pack on his shoulder, identical to the one he'd been given at the police station. He tried to remember whether she had been there when they took his statement, and his body took the drug and put it to work, strengthening him however it could, easing his breath, weeding out his lungs bit by bit, but his heart worked harder, that swollen itchy thing, and his blood rushed in his ears. She slept on a cot near his that night, and every time he woke with a nightmare, there was a cool cloth on his forehead.

The next day, she drained another pint from him and they traveled again, to another tent, to another location, another muddy field and another group of hopeful faces.

Dean should have been looking for him. He'd have been scouring the countryside. But his phone hadn't rung; Natalie had left it tantalizingly close, just across the room on some abandoned cabinet. God he wanted it to ring, some indication Dean was looking, some hint there might have been hope.

 _You'll be lucky if he pours out a whiskey on your grave once a year_.

Sam's teeth chattered. The cold that came in waves between the heat of the demon blood or maybe it was just his muscles protesting being so pumped full of juice and then being restrained - not that he thought he could stand under his own power - or maybe it was the dull fritz of panic catching him now and then, the thing born of the Cage that sometimes shut him down so well he'd had to escape into his room to maintain some dignity about it, he didn't remember but he thought he spoke aloud, Constance looked frightened of him sometimes, frightened and so worried-

 _She_ came again. He didn't listen. She stroked his face, she said something about how well he was doing, how loved he was. So pleased that the blood was keeping him healthy and alive, so pleased they could drain him without killing him. He set his jaw and refused to look at her.

Until the fire rushed through him, a warm whoomp of roaring flame he recognized distantly as _prayer_ , as _Cas_ , but his fists clenched at the intrusion, his eyes screwed shut, he gritted his teeth as a flood of terrible darkness swept through him, the intense electric burn of whatever Cas felt as love, a bitter thread through it and he thought _Dean Dean Dean_ this is for Dean, Cas is praying for _Dean_ , and when he was conscious of his surroundings again, he was saying:

"Please please, talk to me talk to me, please please we will find you-"

And then her hand was on his forehead and she was turned away from him, talking to someone else. "I thought he wasn't psychic anymore." More murmurings, and then-

His phone rang.

The room went quiet, except for his uneven breathing.

Another ring, and she left him, and the ringing stopped, and she was gone, and Constance pressed cool cloths to his forehead and shushed him and it was a very long while before he knew anything of substance, before anything felt solid, before he slipped into a dream.

_Dean isn't coming._

Sam looked at himself, a cocky sonofabitch Sam had shot dead in a forest mindscape, but he'd never _really_ died, not wholly.

_He's not coming. You're screwed now, man._

Not true. Cas said-

 _Cas didn't_ say _anything. Cas wants you home, Cas wants to find you. But maybe you've noticed him and Dean aren't exactly on great terms? Cas is fucked up in a million ways. You think you can trust that guy?_

Cas -

 _He_ broke _you._

Sam didn't respond. Cas had done what he'd done for the same reasons Sam had, with Ruby. Had a plan to save the world, complete with "at all costs" mindset, fucked it over in the process. And Cas had suffered the fallout, suffered the Leviathan horde burning through his vessel, suffered Lucifer in his head when he'd taken on Sam's stuff. He and Cas were square.

_Forgiving him even as we speak, aren'tcha? Sucker._

Forgiveness is a good thing, asshat.

The other Sam laughed, that strange way Sam remembered - without malice, but without regard either. _You're never getting out of here. Not if you're banking on that ex-angel and a brother who can't even tell when you're you and when you're not you but still actually... you._

Sam frowned. The other Sam frowned, thought a second. _You know what I mean. I'm saying you can't depend on the others. I'm saying you're kinda fucked._ Little smile.

No. Sam closed his eyes, tried to slow his heart. He could count on Dean, he could- You're Lucifer. You're just trying to - You're _him_.

The other Sam pressed his mouth into a line. For a guy without a soul, he looked pretty sincere. A little regretful, even. _No_. _I'm you. You shoulda stayed inside, Sam. I could have protected you in there._

How can you even care? Why did you even keep hunting?

 _Because I remember you, and I trust those memories. They made you a person who saved the world. They made you a hero. They made you a person who did the most good. And I had a drive inside me to do the most good._ The other Sam shrugged. _It just made sense to follow your lead, y'know? It was practical._

Sam nodded, loose. You were following my lead? That makes a lot of things make more sense. He thought of the bartender shot dead, he thought of the police officer beaten unconscious, he thought of Bobby -

 _Plus, killing fuglies, kinda awesome. And the sex you can have when all you care about is making each other feel great without the_ guilt _? But my point is, you're not getting rescued-_

I get it, okay?

_No you don't. I'm saying you have to rescue yourself, princess._

Sam raised his brows. What?

The other Sam grinned. _I got a plan._

* * *

He said no. When he didn't have breath to speak, he said no. When he had no strength to protest, he said no. When he saw nothing, when he felt nothing, he said no.

It didn't matter.

They moved him again and again, into that tent, into that ribbon-laced chair where he sat like a king, where creatures came to drink, came to believe, hope for their children, for themselves. Where they tried to trade in one torture for another, that vague and far off chance at coming back to earth, to rejoin their families.

They gifted him with heirlooms. A vampire and her adopted family, a vampire who reminded him uncomfortably of Lenore, left him the treasured cameo of her Maker, a matronly woman in an 1800s brooch who had been killed earlier that year and would never know his grace. The vampire begged him, when he was fully King, would he rescue her Maker from Purgatory? Her Maker had always believed in him, she deserved to be saved-

A shuffling family of ghouls placed silver rings on his fingers. The children had begun making it an element of ceremony to weave fresh flowers into the silver circlet and then vote amongst themselves for who would get to crown him that day. He watched as they silently chose who among them had been worthiest, honor among monsters. Those sensitive to silver were most adamant about doing it, they wanted to burn for their king, they wanted to be brave for him.

They were always different children - somewhere in his mind he was gathering information, he was planning an escape, and this meant he was somewhere new every day, sometimes twice in a day - and he had no idea how the tradition had passed from group to group, except that that was how traditions were formed. Rumors, well-wishes. We're going to revival on Tuesday, he imagined, I heard you have to make him a crown so he'll save you.

He wouldn't save anyone. He _couldn't_.

He'd lost track of the days, he thought it hadn't been that many, really. But he stared up at the ceiling from his cot. He hadn't spoken in ages. Or hours, maybe.

They came to him and they pressed on his shoulder because they knew he'd say no, and he drank and they left.

If he seemed more focused, no one took notice, except that Constance seemed happier with his outlook, how he seemed more resigned, and Frederick seemed angry that Sam didn't fight him as hard when he came with the blood.

Oh, he still fought. His whole being rebelled against being forcefed the thing he had tried so hard to put behind him, the desire that still stuck at the back of his throat when a demon was nearby, when a demon's blood coated his knife, when he watched the innocent host die and thought, a few years ago, I'd have saved your life. A few years ago I'd have spared you.

So he fought. He said no and he fought. But he didn't have the strength, and he had the consolation that he'd be able to give Dean one more puzzle piece, if he was even looking.

They sat him in the chair, they didn't bother tying him down anymore. He couldn't get away, and some woman had made a silken sash of blue and orange that held him upright like a seat belt, across his good shoulder and down to the opposite hip, and sometimes he sagged against it, and sometimes he was able to sit upright without its help.

He closed his eyes, and the knot in the back of his mind swelled open, reached out. He could feel it like a magnetic pull, he could taste it like sulfur tang. For days he'd been drinking, no matter that they drained it from him. For days he'd been finding them, like drawn to like, the power inside him seeking out the nearest demon, sometimes two, and with a prayer, with an apology, he lowered them to the ground, he stamped them out, he sent them to hell.

And he hoped, he hoped, that Dean would think the worst of him, that Dean would come running to stop him, maybe even to kill him, to keep him human.

Sam was counting on it.

* * *

He'd started talking in his sleep.

Constance frowned when he did it, but he rarely truly slept, so she couldn't bear to wake him. He dozed mostly, a light thing he snapped out of at the tiniest sound. She watched, a vigil, her sleeping king. She washed his face and feet and hands. She made sure he got water when he needed it; he never asked for food, and she was certain the blood was keeping him nourished. She had tried once, but he looked so sick, he said such strange things, she never tried to bring him food again.

When he was out cold, Constance made sure he was bathed properly, anointed, sacred. He never noticed or thanked her. He never spoke to her but the once, before the first service.

He spoke in his sleep, of Dean Winchester, of salvation. _Dean will come_...

And she remembered that the boyking was a seer, he had visions, he had power, and then he had another fit.

"Frederick!" she called, smoothing a cool cloth over Sam's forehead. "Get the Steward!" Under her hand, Sam was in anguish, his brows together, breathing through his teeth gasping, lips parted back in pain, hands clenching and grasping.

"Please please," he murmured.

"What's wrong?" the Steward said, crossing the room.

Constance looked up at her. "Another vision, I think."

Sam stilled, blinked his eyes open, watched nothing. Little smile on his trembling lips. "Gonna find me," he breathed. "My brother's gonna kill you..."

The Steward frowned. "He doesn't know what he's saying. He's delirious."

Sam laughed.

Constance looked from him to the Steward. Bit her lip. He'd been talking in his sleep, but nothing like this.

Sam's phone buzzed on the cabinet. Frederick picked it up, frowned at the screen. "Uh, Mistress?"

He handed the phone to the Steward, who went pale.

"What's it say?" Constance stepped away from Sam. The rumors were that his psychic thing had faded, but maybe the demon blood-

"Nothing." The Steward came forward to Sam and placed her hand on his chest, closed her eyes. Briefly, a glint of red showed under her palm, what Constance knew was the Steward's gift; she was reaching out to sense Dean. And she paled further, nearly dropped the phone when it rang a moment later. She snatched her hand back from Sam's chest and steeled herself. She looked up at Constance. "Everything's going to be fine." She took a deep breath, then picked up the call, on speaker.

"You think you're on my trail, huh _?_ " she said, in Sam's voice.

" _I know I am_."

"I sincerely doubt it." She smiled at Sam, her hand on his knee as a comfort. "Look I know you're worried, but I'm not having this conversation with you again. I can take care of myself. I'm a better hunter when you're not around - and that's not an insult man, it's just... true. You just keep your distance from me and we'll both be better off _."_

" _That's not true, Sammy. Now I know you can be a stubborn son of a bitch, but you gotta know I can outlast you in that arena when it comes to making sure you're where I can keep an eye on ya-_ "

"Keep an eye on me? Right. Cuz that's always worked out so well for me. Jesus Dean do you even listen to yourself _?_ "

Sam blinked, his breath quickened. Constance sat and took his wrist to get his pulse, shaking her head a little at the Steward, who smiled and nodded: _It's okay. Don't worry._

" _Sam-_ "

"No man. I'm not gonna say it again. I'm done. You stay the fuck away from me. The only thing you've ever done for me is drag me back into a life I never wanted and now can't escape, because you're too weak to be alone. You don't know me anymore, you definitely can't track me- _-"_

" _Oh can't I? You think I don't know about your little demon blood problem?_ _You think I can't see a fucking burned patch of ground and recognize that my idiot little brother's gone completely off the rails,_ again _? I'm comin' for your ass, man, and you and me are gonna have a nice long fucking heart to heart-_ -"

"Man you don't know what you're talking about-"

" _Yeah I fucking do. You must think I'm real dumb, not even bothering to cover your tracks. Your bullshit demon exorcism trail's leadin' me straight to you, Sammy boy_ -"

The Steward looked at Sam, stared in betrayal. She put the phone to her chest so she could calm herself. Constance watched between them. Sam stared straight up, brows together, shaking his head, mouthing something.

"Demon exorcisms _,_ " the Steward said, laughing a bit but her face was stormy, angry. She directed Frederick to Sam's side, Sam who had started struggling, started making little sounds and squeaked when Frederick slapped his hand over Sam's mouth and held tight. "Yeah, you got me-"

"Dean!" Sam said, but it was muffled behind Frederick's hand, and the Steward snapped his phone off, saying, "What a sneaky little creature you are, Sam Winchester. Drawing your brother to you right under my nose. My fault really. I should have been paying more attention." She crushed his phone under her heel. Her hands worked in and out of fists as she managed her considerable anger. Constance looked from her to Sam.

"Steward-" she said, and it had the desired effect of grounding the Steward, who turned to leave, head high, seething.

"Frederick?"

"Mistress?"

"Don't kill him."

* * *

Frederick left him alone after some a while. Sam couldn't tell. He counted time in breaths, in moments, of wakefulness or after dreams. But Frederick had left him after the allure of beating the crap out of someone chained to a cot had lost its sheen.

Sam blinked at the ceiling, dazed with pain, a physical dizziness, blood on his face, cracks in his ribs.

 _Dammit Dean_. Sam had expected him to be angry. He'd _counted_ on it. But he hadn't counted on the fenix knowing how to push his buttons so well. Fenix could skim the minds of the people closest to their victims - it was how they were able to stay under the radar so well. But she shouldn't have been able to pull Dean's strings that precisely.

_The only thing you've ever done for me is drag me back into a life I never wanted-_

That wasn't Sam. That wasn't her reading _Sam_. God. That was _Dean._ That was something she pulled out of _Dean's_ head to get him to back off-

If he thought - If Dean thought _that_ was true -

Fuck.

He needed to get his head out of his own ass. He needed to stop being so wrapped up in his own shit - Lucifer, the Trials, they weren't going away, not really. He needed to get his back under it and stand up, because Dean didn't need Sam's shit on top of his own. Somewhere along the line, he'd gotten so focused on just surviving, he hadn't been paying attention to how it was affecting _Dean_ -

Sam stared at the ceiling overhead. It didn't matter. Dean ... wouldn't come now. He'd never come now. Never never never-

He pulled at the cuffs in frustration. Pulled until he felt the cloth slip, felt the bite of the metal buckle against his skin, felt the ache in his shoulder, the sharp jostle of a fresh-cracked rib, the exhaustion grey out his vision, but he was weak, he was brittle, and he fell relaxed again, limp, breathing heavy and wet.

Dean would never come for him now.

_You're probably right._

Lucifer sat on Constance's chair, perched on the back with his feet on the seat, face set in deep concern.

Sam closed his eyes, deep breath. He knew the game, of course, but it rankled, Lucifer agreeing with him. About _Dean_. He didn't know Dean.

Of course the point was to get Sam to change his mindset, to have hope, because you couldn't crash land if you weren't in the air in the first place, and Lucifer wanted a crash land, he wanted Sam in flames, he wanted the sickening drop in altitude, the shaking under pressure, the loss of control-

_Saa-amm-_

"Shut up."

_Ahhh there it is, the dulcet tones of my one and only-_

"Stop!"

_Touchy._

The universe spun above him, another galaxy for him to expand into as his molecules scattered, drawing him apart, stars and planets he'd created, he'd watched them collapse, pockets of time he'd expanded into against his will, the surface area of his soul marred and grated against by freezing solar winds and celestial magnetic fields-

 _Dean_.

_Dean Dean Dean._

"You're wrong," he mumbled, blinking upward into space. "Dean... won't give up."

* * *

From then on, Frederick was his minder, had replaced Constance although she was still in charge of his health. They fought over Sam, over how to best keep him alive. Frederick insisted he was allowed to do whatever he liked in the interest of distracting Sam whenever it looked like he might be leaving another breadcrumb in the form of a demon exorcism, as long as it'd be covered by robes and the adoring worshippers couldn't see the marks. Constance preferred that they just drain more from him, de-power him more quickly after administering the demon blood.

In the end, they did both, and Sam had precious few opportunities to use his psychic exorcism crap to get another data point to Dean. But he tried. And they caught him. And they stopped him. And he was sure he had a cracked rib or two, and they drained the strengthening demon blood out of him right away, and more of it than usual, and he would soon be dead, except that the blood just kept him _alive_ over and over and-

Dean. Dean.

Dean was not coming. _Dean won't give up._ Dean is not coming.

Dean Dean.


	3. Chapter 3

**Episode Eight**  
" **Sanguis Sanctus, part II"  
Chapter Three**

_**NOW** _

Under the white revival tent, Sam stood from the ribbon-laced chair. He watched Dean like Dean was the monster here, Dean with blood on his hands and face.

"Sam," he started. "Sammy, what-"

"You don't understand," Sam said, stepping backward on the dais.

"So explain it to me," Dean said. He'd been sure he was wrong. He'd convinced himself to trust in Sam. He wasn't wrong, goddammit. He wasn't wrong this time. "Explain it to me, Sammy," he said again. "Please, dammit. I'm listening. I'm here. Whatever's happening, whatever this is, we'll figure it out."

Sam just stared at him, like he couldn't believe anything Dean was saying. And that hurt, but okay, fair point. But it was different this time. Dean took a step forward, hand out, but Sam just shook his head and stepped back again, looking off behind Dean-

-At the bloodied bodies, some of which just looked like nice people in their church clothes, murdered as they sat peacefully worshipping - damned fucked up, but from Sam's perspective, his brows up, his breath fast as he took in the devastation and he looked at Dean again, shook his head just so-

Dean stepped forward again, beseeching. "Sam-"

"He was right about you. I can't believe it. He was right." Sam put his hand out to the side, stepped back again away from Dean, this look of terror on his face, and from the wings of the little stage came a young man who watched Dean warily as he reached for Sam's arm, and as soon as they made contact, both of them vanished.

* * *

"What the hell was that?" Dean turned to Cas, wide-eyed, breathing hard now that it was over. Sam was gone. Jesus.

But Cas was watching something behind Dean, and Dean spun-

The girl he'd shoved away from him was huddled there against the tent wall, shaking, staring, blood on her face, fingers white around a circlet in her hands. Dean took a step and she shrieked, hands up, silver band like a shield between them.

Dean rolled his eyes, put his hands out, murmured soothing "It's okay" and "No one's gonna hurt you" as he got closer. He crouched. Close up, he could see her light violet eyes, the way her nostrils were slit under a flatter nose. Just this side of inhuman.

She stared.

"Come on-"

"You killed my dad," she said, voice trembling. Her eyes went wet.

Fuck.

"Kid-" Dean said. He wasn't sure how to continue, but he didn't have to figure it out.

"Are you gonna kill me too?"

She stuck her chest out, chin up. Her hands were still shaking, little tears streaked down her face, but she stared at him. Brave.

 _Fuck_.

"No. No I'm not. I just wanna ask you some questions, and then we'll take you to your mom, okay?" He glanced back at Cas who'd come to stand behind him, but Cas didn't have answers. Cas was only starting to understand the questions.

"She's dead," the girl said.

Dean looked out into the mess of tipped chairs, bloodied bodies, and back to her. "She didn't run?" Most of the women had run - even though they could have torn him apart, they'd run. He assumed it was because of the children.

"She was human. She died when I was a baby." The girl was gaining courage. She reminded him of Sam, the longer they talked. "It's just me now."

"Got somewhere else you can go?" And god, it wasn't the first time he'd had to ask a kid that. She nodded, and his shoulders slumped in relief. "Okay. Come on. You're gonna answer me some questions first."

She didn't want to go with him, that was obvious. But he picked her up and didn't give her a choice, made sure she was tilted away from the guy whose dark purple eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling as they made their way out, but she knew anyway; Dean heard her sniffling.

He put Cas on the phone with Kevin and Charlie, trying to suss out where home base probably was, while he dealt with the girl.

She sat on the bed in the motel room, stared up at Dean defiantly.

"What was that?" he asked.

"What was what?"

Sarcastic brat. "That, the tent thing. What were you all doing there?"

"Church," she said, swallowing nervously. "We're not allowed to talk about it."

"Why not?"

"Hu-" She stopped, marshalled herself, clearly resolved not to cry in front of him even though she kind of already was. "Hunters will find us."

Oh.

He nodded at the circlet still gripped in her hands. "And what's that?"

"The King's crown," she whispered. "We're... we're supposed to put flowers in it and... then he'll give us our wishes."

"The King. Sam?"

She nodded. "But we're not allowed to say his name outside Church."

"Why not? Hunters?"

She nodded again. "But demons too. Some of them don't like us praying to their King. But he's our King too! Dad says-" She cut herself off, mouth sewn into a line as she tried not to bust out wailing.

Dean pressed his lips together. Crap. This was all kinds of fucked up.

But she was rallying. "Dad said, 'Damn demons think they got the keys to the kingdom.' But they don't. They don't," she said softly. Earnestly. She was what, maybe seven, but she had conviction. She looked up at Dean. "The King is gonna save us."

 _How_ , he wanted to say. But he watched her, holding back grief, looking at him like she was willing to die for something, parroting her father's words, a man who'd clearly had strong faith. So he instead he said, "Tell me about the King."

She frowned, brought the circlet closer to her chest. "Are you gonna kill him too?"

Dean sat on the other bed and she turned to face him. "No. No I'm not. I just need to talk to him, make sure he's okay. He's my brother."

Her eyes went wide at that. "The King's brother? The Righteous Man? Oh no."

Dean frowned, tilted his head. What the- Okay. He was getting a picture now. Righteous Man, the King. The demons had some kooky religion all about the boy king, Sam, he remembered, but they'd ditched that whole thing, Sam's _destiny_ or whatever. Although the Righteous Man thing was obviously still in play, according to Abaddon. And if monsters somehow co-opted the religion-

But she'd gone white, mouthing _oh no_ with her eyes closed like he was going to cut her throat right then and there.

"I'm not gonna hurt you. I just wanna know about Sam."

She looked over at Cas, still mumbling at the phone, back to Dean. "He's... nice."

"Nice?"

"Really nice. And smart."

"Have you actually talked to him?"

She looked doubtful. "Nooo? But everyone says so, he's so kind. My friend Elspeth got to crown him last week and she said he smiled at her and let her kiss his forehead. You can tell when you see him. He loves us. And he's helping us. So we can go to hell."

"You _want_ to go to hell?"

She shrugged. Looked back to Cas, down to the floor. Dean was aware he might have reached the end of how brave a little kid could be, but he needed to know.

"Where is he now?"

She shrugged again.

"Come on kid-"

"I don't _know_ ," she wailed. "Please don't kill me. I don't know where he is. We just go to church and sometimes he's there, please don't kill me yet-"

"I said I'm not gonna kill ya, jesus kid-"

"But you're the Righteous Man! I don't want to die yet, I don't want to go to Purgatory!"

Dean stared. The word itself was bad enough on edge as he was, but the thought of this little pigtailed brat there, blood on her face and for fuck's sake, why hadn't he cleaned the blood off her face, _christ-_

"Dean."

Dean looked up, the smell of woodsmoke and blood still in the back of his throat, to find Cas looking into his face intently.

"Dean. Are you all right?"

Dean looked from Cas to the girl. She hugged the circlet to her chest, rocked with it, sniffling.

"Y-yeah. Fine. Did you find out where homebase is?"

"We think so. Kevin and Crowley wanted to go right there, but I told them you wished to handle this yourself, that they should stay back for now."

"Think they'll listen?"

Cas lifted his brows, shrugged in doubt. "Probably not."

"Crap-"

"That's why I told them we were with Sam right now."

On cue, Crowley and Kevin showed up in the room, Kevin looking a little green at the mode of transportation.

There was a beat.

"Well? Where is he?" Crowley said.

Dean grinned at Cas, just a little. Cas preened.

"Not here- wait!"

Crowley turned, hand already on Kevin's arm.

"Wait. I need to handle this. Just trust me."

"But I can get there faster-"

Dean put a hand on both of their shoulders and marched them backward toward the bathroom. He nodded back at the kid. "Somebody's gotta get this kid to her... some kinda family."

"Who is she?" Kevin asked.

"An orphan, now," Dean said, his tone forbidding more questions. "Can you get her wherever she's going, Kev? I need Crowley."

"Yeah. Sure." But he didn't _look_ sure. He shifted to look at Cas.

Cas tilted his head in some kind of silent agreement. "Don't worry. I will accompany Dean-"

Dean closed his eyes. This was _not_ happening. "I don't need a goddamned chaperone dealing with my own brother!"

The room was quiet. The goddamned chorus just kept looking at each other, Crowley, Cas, and Kevin, a bunch of fucking mother hens who just didn't _get_ him and Sam, okay? Even Cas was still figuring them out through the filter of his newfound humanity.

"If you're going to see the King," a small voice said, "could you take me with you?"

Dean turned to stare at the girl. She'd rubbed the blood from her face herself, she'd smoothed her hair down, she was sitting tall.

"What?"

"I want to give him his - I want to see him just once before you kill him-"

"I'm _not_ -" Dean calmed himself, found he was heaving breaths, surrounded on all sides by people who thought he was on a mission to kill Sam - "I'm not going to kill him. I told you. But you can't come with, kid. This guy's gonna drop you off with some family," he said, thumbing at Kevin. "And you just keep your nose clean, don't talk about church or Sam, don't hurt anybody, and hunters'll leave you alone. Got it?"

She nodded. Then she took a long moment to think, offered out the crown half woven with flowers. "Will you-"

 _Fuck_. "No," he said quickly, crossed the room to push it back to her chest. "You just keep it, okay? He'd uh. He'd want you to keep it, okay? To remember him." Jesus.

She looked down, nodded slow.

Kevin went to her, frowning. Dean thought he was trying to spot what kind of creature she was, whether he was likely to be monster chow as soon as they were out of sight of Dean, but he walked toward her and held out a hand.

"What's your name?" Kevin said.

"Tiffany."

"Okay Tiffany. We're gonna take a little trip together. It'll be fun." She took his hand and Kevin looked back at Dean with a shrug.

"Keep your phone on," Dean said. "Let us know if you hit trouble."

"Will do."

Five minutes later, after Kevin had taken Tiffany into the bathroom and washed her face and tried to fix her hair and she went to the potty or whatever, they were gone.

"Well that was horrible."

Cas nodded, grave. "Are you all right?"

Dean shook his head, in disbelief, not in answer. "Yeah. I'm. Okay, Crowley. You know where we're goin'?"

"Latitude and longitude, courtesy of your IT Department."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

"I don't know. A 'please' would be nice." Crowley waggled his head in expectation, then relented a moment later. "Oh, all right. Hold tight, my little leeches."

It wasn't so much the twisting tearing sense of being pulled apart and put back together that turned his stomach. It was the sense of other, a thing he could only call _black_ in his head, _void_ , smoke, whatever the opposite of Grace was, not that Dean would know. He looked over at Cas; Cas would know.

But Cas was already stepping forward, toward a large building in the distance.

Around them spread croplands, another tiny town. "Where are we?"

"Talltree, Illinois," Crowley said. "Four little red dots here, including a couple of half-finished exorcisms where Marnie Moose left the job half-done. We have a theory-"

"I don't care."

"-That Sam isn't exactly happy to be here."

"If he's even here," Dean said. "And you don't need to tell me about Sam, okay? You just keep it zipped when it comes to Sam. His name better stay the fuck out of your mouth."

"But-"

" _Zipped_."

Dean started toward the warehouse in the distance. Maybe half a mile's hike, and he needed the time to think. Whatever Crowley thought, he hadn't been at the weird revival twenty minutes earlier. He hadn't seen Sam smiling at a crowd of monsters. He didn't _know_ Sam.

* * *

"I told you you didn't know him," Sam said, teeth gritted. He blinked heavy.

"Pack everything up. Everything." Natalie was still dressed in clothes from Sam's duffle, the nicest things he had that weren't Fed gear. In her usual form, they draped from her shoulders.

"But-" some voice said.

"Now. Unless you want the Righteous Man on your ass."

Gasps in the room, and sudden activity, and Constance was at his side then, pressing a cloth to the gash on his cheek. "We can't move him," she said. Sam detected bitterness. "Thanks to your pitbull-"

Frederick shot to his feet. "Excuse _me_? He was _betraying_ our position. All you were doing was giving him a little less time to screw us over. _I_ was stopping him."

Sam chuckled briefly, ribs protesting. "I told you he wouldn't give up."

"Shut up!" Frederick shrieked. He started for Sam, but Natalie held up her hand.

"Pack up what you need," she said to Constance, watching Sam with a kind of cold that was difficult to read. "I want him ready to go in five minutes."

"But he's-"

"Five minutes," she said. She came to Sam's side, watched him. Sam blinked up at her, willed his vision to focus on her face. "I had such hopes." She brushed a length of hair from his forehead, grazed the cut on his cheek with some regret. "But we will make it, with or without your help."

"The thing is," Sam rasped. "I feel bad for you. All of you. But you can't just take what you want and call yourselves worthy of it. Believe me. I know a little something..."

He trailed off, breathing hard. He hadn't slept in days, but it felt like he was sleeping all the time, Lucifer kept him company, carved him up now and then, but even that was a sort of yo-yo between feeling strong enough to withstand his own collapsing mind after being dosed, and crashing into full on psychosis when they drained him. He didn't even feel the leather cuffs binding him to the cot anymore.

"Steward," someone said.

Sam opened his eyes again to find her watching him, teeth bared, and she whirled with sparking anger - or he thought he could see the sparks, they might have been imaginary - and she calmed herself immediately.

"Be careful with that. Constance, bleed him, then pack that up too."

She directed the creature to set the bowl - the bowl with his blood in it, he recognized - on the floor under his arm. They'd been spooked at church. He saw that from the frenzy of them coming back to where he lay in the dark, not fit, now, to be shown in public. Good for the red in him, and that only.

And then she was gone, shouting orders and exercising her anger at Dean, at Sam, on whoever was in her path, and Sam couldn't help a little laugh, smile.

"You think you got it wrapped up, don't ya," Frederick said, coming over.

"My brother's gonna kill you."

"Get outta here, Connie," Frederick said.

Constance frowned between them, hands on the buckle of one of the leather cuffs. "No-"

"I'll pack him up. Just get on out."

She must have left. Sam didn't know. He closed his eyes a moment, opened them to find the shadow of Frederick above him - and jerked in his bonds at the fresh slicing pain in his side.

Frederick showed him the knife, slicked his thumb along the blade. He popped it into his mouth and closed his eyes as he sucked it clean. "So much better straight from the cow."

Sam gritted his teeth. He had handled Lucifer. He could handle Frederick. But Dean was so close. Dean was so close. If he was going to die, he wanted it to be Dean. His breath came fast at the thought, lightheaded, when he looked up, it was Dean over him, Dean who jabbed his finger into the wound in his side and twisted, and Sam's mouth dropped open in agony.

_Not Dean. Not Dean. This is a monster. Dean's not a monster._

_Winchester up._

He blinked again and it was Frederick. The searing in his side, the _wrongness_ , and the finger coated in his blood, and it was Adam, it was Adam, no, no Adam was in a cage, Adam had been dead long before Sam had met him.

"There's a certain something," Frederick said, "about your blood. Just the right seasoning. Real humans are so... bland."

The shadow over his head disappeared, two sets of claws on him then, at his hip and on his chest, dragging him close, and then the heat and strange violating sensation of being _drained_ , what Dean must have felt when he'd been turned by that vamp, when Sam had _let_ him be turned. What those demons must have felt when Sam bit them open and drank them dry-

His breath came quick, he pulled at the bindings holding him down, at the claws digging into his hip, his ribs, Frederick's teeth tore at his flesh in his eagerness, Sam's head went back into the thin pillow beneath it, straining, mouth open. Hold on. Hold on. Dean was minutes out.

Frederick sat back on his heels after a moment, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Sam went limp on the cot, breath irregular, he tried to focus.

"Natalie," he managed, gasping. "Natalie won't allow this-"

"Gonna tell mommy on me?" Frederick tilted his head at Sam. "You think I didn't come into this operation prepared to take her out. You forget I'm a hunter, Sam. I got everything I need. In fact, you just sold me. Yeah." He looked Sam up and down, nodding to himself. "I'm gonna keep you for myself. I've decided religion's not really my thing. I'll let that bitch out there kill your brother, then I'll kill her."

That focused him. He didn't think Dean would let a fenix kill him. Dean was a hunter, Dean knew how to kill a fenix. Probably. But no matter what, he had to derail this idea-

"She can't kill Dean. You'll be on the run from him for the rest of your life."

"Yeah? Think so? Because Tim says he and his boys managed to take you down back in the day and they never saw hide nor hair of your knight in shining daddy issues."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Because I never _told_ him- Don't _talk about my family-_ "

"You're right though. It'll be easier with both of us on it. Me and Timmo, partners again. Eatin' like _kings_. Get it?"

"Don't- this is suicide, just-" Sam froze as Frederick stuck his finger into the wound in his side again. Breathed through his teeth, tried to focus.

Frederick brought his red fingers up to his mouth, inches from Sam's face, the slurping - obscene. "Yeah," he murmured low, into Sam's ear. "Kill the bitch. Take you to Tim, have ourselves a fine time."

Frederick would kill him. Frederick and Tim wouldn't keep him alive, they didn't have the restraint. Frederick for sure didn't, and Tim hadn't much when he'd been human, and he wasn't that anymore, by the sound of it.

No. No. He couldn't die when Dean was just minutes out. He blinked at the ceiling, marshaling his will. His cuff was looser than it should have been. Constance had done that. He had a chance.

He was going to _survive_. For once he was going to do what Dean was counting on him to do.

* * *

"There are probably dozens of creatures in there," Cas said. "What's the plan?"

Dean bit his lip watching the building, then spun and sank back down behind the stack of shipping boxes. The "warehouse" had turned out to be an old shipping company, abandoned when the train stopped rolling through. A network of tracks overgrown with weeds crisscrossed the in and out. Patrols of monsters were quickstepping it around the perimeter - clearly their appearance at the tent church thing had put them on red alert.

Great.

"Distraction?"

Crowley narrowed his eyes at the milling monsters. "I'm on it," he said, a bit dark.

"What do you know about this weird religion thing, anyway?"

Crowley looked at Dean. "It's not a religion, it's a cult. And I _thought_ we had stomped it out of existence decades ago. Apparently not."

"And the chances Sam's working with them because he _wants_ to be?"

Crowley frowned. "I told you we had a theory."

"Save the Toldja Sos. Just tell me what I'm walking into."

The demon screwed up his face in distaste. "He could be brainwashed. He could just sympathize with them. You know our Moose-"

"No way."

"You saw him at the church, Dean," Cas reminded.

"Whatever. We'll figure it out when we have him back. You," Dean said, poking his finger at Crowley, "distraction. You and me," he said to Cas, "We're going in."

Two agonizing minutes later, Dean was tapping his thigh in frustration, waiting for whatever Crowley had up his sleeve to go into motion. "Come on, come on-"

The sound of a howl echoed over the flat landscape, chills down Dean's spine, momentary rise of panic. "Hell hounds."

"Dean, look-"

Teams of monsters, rag-tag at best, spilled from the two doors they could see from their vantage point. They'd learned their tactics from TV, it was obvious, and they didn't stand a chance if Crowley had even one hell hound waiting for them. Kind of pathetic. Dean'd feel bad for them if it were any other situation.

"Great. Ten down, god knows how many to go," Dean said. "Ready?"

Cas gripped his angel blade. "As I'll ever be."

It went about as well as any unplanned assault on an enemy with numbers unknown could have gone, considering the enemy was just a bunch of Ned Flanderses with teeth and claws and speed and instincts. And Sam. They had _Sam_.

He cut them down, again and again, silver bullets, sometimes a slice across the throat - it wasn't possible to assess what kind of thing each thing was, but if it got back up, it got put down again another way, and that was all there was to it. Angel blades killed just about everything.

Red settled over him, he slipped into battle mode, so familiar, even comfortable, the smell of campfire, the knowledge that Cas was at his shoulder, and that they were working forward, toward Sam, where Sam was waiting, Sam was the finish line, he almost expected _brother_ honey south, he almost expected a third man at his other shoulder, he almost almost-

"Dean!" Sam said, appearing at the top of a stairs, hands out. "Stop."

"Sammy-" And he did. Stop. Chest heaving, he looked around. Bodies lay limp, moving here and there but nothing with purpose, except for the ones who looked at him with terror where before they'd been fighting him, at the sound of his name, they'd gone all statue-esque. A moment later, Dean remembered _the Righteous Man!_ as they turned and fled.

They were in an alcove, a room made of walls of stacked boxes off to the side of the shipping floor. There was blood on his face, down his side dripping.

"Dean, let me explain."

"I'm all ears, Sammy."

Sam came forward, wary, eyeing Dean's blade. Dean cursed and threw it away, put his hand out empty.

"You don't understand, what I'm trying to _do_ here-"

That familiar tone, that pitch of Sam's every single fucking time he begged Dean to trust him, to believe in him, goddammit.

"I get it," Dean said. "I do. Believe me, I see why you'd want to help them, Sam. You... You feel like you're just like them, right? A monster?" His brain slipped into high gear, sorting through everything he knew about Sam, his worst fears, his highest hopes. "If you can save them, you can save yourself? Right?"

Sam narrowed his eyes, looked unsure. Nodded hesitantly. "That's right. I'm helping them."

"But Sam, you're not a monster. You're not. You're not like them, okay? This isn't you-"

"Not _like_ them-" Sam wrangled his emotions into check. When he opened his eyes, Dean could see him struggling to keep it together as he kept coming down the stairs. "I am. We're the same." Until he was at the bottom of the stairs-

-And in a lightning quick movement, had disarmed Dean, gun spinning off, had him flipped onto his back, forearm pressing into Dean's throat.

"I told you to leave me alone," Sam said through gritted teeth, heaving breaths. "I _told_ you-"

And a moment later, Dean had turned the tables, hooking a leg behind Sam's knee and rolling - a rookie move but Sam was far enough gone he fell for it. Dean kept him down with a knee in his breastbone, both of his wrists pinned with one hand. Sam's long legs kicked without purchase.

"Guess your shoulder's healed up," Dean said. He needed time to think. Demon blood, Sam's connection with monsters - Dean had never figured out how to deal with any of this stuff in a way that ended up with him and Sam on the same side of the argument. He felt a warm hand drop onto his shoulder.

"Dean," Cas said.

Dean turned to glance at Cas. Cas was peering at Sam, down the length of him and back up to Sam's rebellious face. Then he closed his eyes and his posture relaxed into what Dean recognized as prayer. Which meant Cas thought-

Dean looked back down at Sam, searching. Sam just watched Cas, uncomprehending, looked back at Dean and tensed to fight back-

Dean clocked him and the sound of the back of Sam's head hitting the rough concrete floor cracked like a foundation giving way.

Maybe it was.

Dean sat back. Looked at Cas. "He's not, he wasn't-"

Cas glared at Sam. "I don't believe so."

"Excuse me," a shaky voice said.

She was hiding under the staircase, a girl maybe early twenties. She put her hands out as she stepped out of the shadows, looked like she was preparing to meet her death.

"He's in the back room, up in the third floor office."

Dean looked from her to Sam on the ground. "That's not Sam?"

The girl followed his gaze. Shook her head. "Sh... shapeshifter. Please get to him. I tried to help - But Frederick, I think-" She stopped, closed her eyes to compose herself. "Please hurry," she said without opening her eyes. She knelt in front of Dean then, bowed her head. He could see a pink scar snaking up around her neck. "Please be quick."

What the - Righteous Man, right. He was gettin' kinda really fucking sick of that damned title. He looked at Cas. "Watch her, okay? I'm goin' after Sam."

He'd retrieved his gun and blade, but it seemed like after the boss battle with fake Sam, the rest of the monsters in residence had high-tailed it. Fine with him.

Fake-Sam was awake when he knelt to tie him up - it was always possible this girl was lying, though he wasn't sure why she'd try to get him to kill the guy they'd been worshipping or whatever, either way, he wasn't going to risk shooting someone who looked like Sam until actual Sam was found - but anyway, possible shapeshifter Sam was awake and sneering at him.

"You don't get it. He's not even really your brother. And he doesn't _need_ you-"

Okay. Nevermind. Definitely not Sam.

Dean took out fake-Sam with a silver bullet to the heart, and then it was everything he could do not to run full tilt for the back staircase he could see across the dim lit warehouse floor, half hidden behind some boxes but leading up to a walled off second and third floor of offices. Dean crept along, probably too quickly to be safe, but not quickly enough with that girl's voice in his head, _please hurry, I tried to help, please hurry-_

He took the stairs two at a time, then a crash from upstairs, a yelp, thud, silence, and he was up clearing the landing of the second floor a moment later, up the second set of stairs to the third floor in the next breath.

There was only one office on the third floor. Abandoned moving boxes, slumped stacks of paper, rotted dried out potted plants scattered the lobby the stairs opened into, and there at the back was an office that spanned the whole width of the small third floor. It was dark; no lights on in the lobby, no light on in the room that he could see through the office window, and apparently whatever windows faced the outside afternoon light had been blocked out.

"He's coming," Dean heard. A whisper, he heard it only because everything else in the warehouse was silent. And more after it, sibilant and hushed and unintelligible, repeated muttering.

Gun up, Dean took his time clearing the stacks of boxes, but then he was at the door, breathing in, out, in again, and he nudged it open with a foot, aimed his pistol around, but it was black in the room, just vaguely outlined shapes in the low-light. He headed for the windows and yanked up the blinds-

* * *

_Surge up rise up Dean is coming._

A hot release in his hand, thumb joint on fire but he is free, hand free to free the other while the thing _drinks_ so mindless like the animal it is, Sam hisses at the greedy mouth ragged the edges of his flesh there, like Jesus blood and water if he is dead, but he's not, or he's not Jesus - he's certainly not Jesus. He could be dead.

It is enough to shove them over, it is enough to take the thing by surprise, and he is desperate, Dean Dean Dean, desperate, and there is only one thing he can do so he finds the head and he presses down into the red he presses down and holds until the thrashing is stopped until the kicking is stopped and -

And if he is damned, he is damned, he always was and always will be, but Dean is coming.

He's coming.


	4. Chapter 4

**Episode Eight**  
" **Sanguis Sanctus, part II"  
Chapter Four**

"Fuck," Dean breathed. The late afternoon light slanted orange through the room, low-angled enough to throw everything into sharp shadow.

The mass of black in the middle of the room had been a cot, overturned, and two bodies lay there, a mess of limbs and god the _blood_. Instinct dropped him to Sam's side. Sam was mostly on his stomach, twisted partway, Dean followed the long line of his body to find his ankles both cuffed in leather to either side of one end of the overturned cot, one leg pulled up and back, twisted. Sam's bare foot twitched.

"Fuck." He had Sam's bony ankle unbuckled in seconds. The dark shadow of bruising he could see in the poor light made him see red, but he managed to keep it under wraps long enough to set Sam's leg onto the ground, gentle, slow, because Sam groaned with the movement. Dean unbuckled his other ankle, then crawled back up Sam's body, nudged Sam's shoulder and he rolled to his back where he blinked, unseeing, turned his face away from Dean. Fuck, Sammy.

But Dean couldn't see - he patted over Sam's neck, chest, he just couldn't see where all the _blood_ was coming from. He twisted to inspect the other body, a nice gaping stab wound in the _other_ guy would do a lot to ease his mind, but when he pushed on the guy, it overtipped a bowl under his head, a bowl of red, thick red over his face and up the edges of the porcelain, a bowl he recognized from the church tent thing. He tilted his head at it, at the spreading red leeching into the thin carpet, at the strangeness, but no, the guy wasn't bleeding, it had to have been Sam's blood, and Dean turned back as Sam groaned again.

"Shh, shh, I'm here, it's okay Sammy-" He put his hands on Sam's shoulders to keep him still. "Just gonna see where all this blood is coming from, okay?" He took Sam by the chin, brief flash of two weeks ago, taking this kid by the chin when he was about to tear out his stitches, and the look on Sam's face about it -

Sam twisted away from him, feeble but desperate, twisted and pressed his lips together and Jesus what the fuck was going on here?

"Come on, Sammy. Look at me."

Sam kept his head turned. He trembled with the effort, Dean could have forced him easily. That was messed up all by itself. Dean slipped his hand from Sam's chin up his jawline, into his hair, just patted his cheek there, smear of his thumb through Sam's blood there. "Come on, little brother. It's me, it's Dean."

"No, no," he mouthed. But the fight seemed to have gone out of him.

Dean tilted his face toward him. There was blood on his mouth. Dean closed his eyes. Blood on his mouth. Exorcisms only Sam could do, only on demon blood. He glanced over at the dead whatever-it-was on the floor - the ornamental church bowl, no injuries that could have resulted in that much blood loss. And on the overturned cot, leather straps at wrist and ankle level. For completeness, he scanned down to the wrist closest to him, yes deep purple bruises, healing pink wounds where Sam must have fought, and further up his arm - Dean thought he might be sick.

He set about removing the pinched off tubing, the needle in Sam's arm, mechanical, anger shut away for now, because otherwise - Sam hissed and shifted and it bled, fuck, fuck.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, it's me."

Sam chuckled, dark. "Sure." He watched Dean warily as he worked, as he tore a strip from his tee shirt and made a quick wrap over the bead of blood in Sam's elbow, as he ran his fingers down Sam's torso looking for other injuries, as he cursed at the bleeding knife wound in Sam's side. Sam didn't react at the touch except a brief flutter of eyelashes, and he refocused on something off to his left. Dean looked into the space, behind the cot he thought, but there was nothing, there was nothing there.

"Okay kiddo. Your thumb's dislocated. I'm gonna fix it."

Sam nodded.

"On three. One—" Sam seized up as the joint pushed back into place, turned his face toward the carpet as he curled in on himself.

"Sam?"

"Jerk." Sam closed his eyes, swallowed. "I'm in trouble, Dean," he breathed. "I'm in trouble."

"I know. It's okay, kid. I gotcha."

Sam flailed a hand upward, into Dean's chest, eyes just barely open. His breath came quick. "Please don't leave."

Dean gave him a look. "I'm not goin' anywhere."

"-don't leave me there- Dean," he breathed, repeated it, _don't leave me there, Dean please_ -

There was a crash downstairs, Cas yelling _Dean!_ and Sam tensed.

Fuck. Hadn't he _just_ promised he wouldn't leave-

Sam stared at him, eyes wide, grip in his shirt weak. A shriek from downstairs, and Sam's brows lowered.

"Constance. Constance. She-" He looked at his own wrist, like he'd just realized he was free. He was coming around, he was coming back, thank god, thank god, or whoever. "She helped me. She loosened - Dean, you have to protect her."

"She kept you captive, I don't even _want_ to know-"

"She helped me. Please."

"Cas can handle it," Dean said. "I ain't leaving you."

Sam closed his eyes, that brat little smile, like he knew Dean was hunkering down to keep an asinine promise. He shook his head, opened his mouth to argue-

"What? We killed queen bitch, so-"

Sam frowned. "The shapeshifter?" Dean nodded. Sam shook his head again, more deliberately, put a hand down to try to get up against Dean's hand easing him back to the floor. "She's a fenix, she's a fenix, Dean-"

Dean dropped his head back, exaggerated annoyance. "Fuck. Okay." Dean needed copper, like _yesterday._ Copper and the fucking reversing ritual- "You don't happen to know the incantation, do you?"

Sam dropped his head to the floor. Little smile, little nod. "I've been rehearsing it for two weeks, wishing I could use it," he said.

"Okay then," Dean grinned. "Looks like I'm bringin' her to you."

* * *

Dean was gone again. Orange light filtered through the dust. He was on the floor, he realized. On the floor and he could move. There was the cot he'd been strapped to for... how long how long, tipped over. Everything hurt. His thumb ached. He flexed his hand, something pulled. He should have starved to death. The blood kept him alive, just kept keeping him alive in spite of everything. That's right. He remembered.

But he couldn't latch onto a thread, he couldn't keep hold of - Frederick had dosed him, and had drunk, and now he felt the burn in his side, the tacky blood on his shirt. Sharp ache in his ribs, face on fire, sticky to the touch. Things were broken. Things were broken. His parts spread all over the floor. On fire, keyed up, unattached to the earth. Unkept. Unmade.

If it had really been Dean, Dean would have wiped his face, dressed his side, taken him home. Or at least killed him by now.

But there was no Dean.

_It's okay. I'm here._

Lucifer brushed stray hair from his forehead, upside down looked at him, gentle in his face, light was his name, ice his touch, murmured down to him where Sam laid with his head in Lucifer's lap.

_I won't leave you, not ever._

"Not real."

 _This? No._ Lucifer gestured outward. _Course not. Dreamed this up yourself. Heroic rescue and all. You really have some kinda hero-worship thing going on with that brother, don't you._

Sam closed his eyes, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe. He was free, wasn't he? Arms and legs and next to him the dead body of Frederick. Breathe, breathe -

_Breathe, Sam. Dean is counting on you._

Sam opened his eyes to look at Lucifer. "Make up your mind," he said. His voice felt like he hadn't used it in years, or he'd just been screaming for years, or he'd never said anything without the scrape of pain in it.

_Gotta have hope, Sam. Remember the first obligation of a prisoner._

Sam nodded. Yeah, he got it. Can't torment someone who's dead. But he couldn't move, he couldn't, the bitten shredded hole in his side ached deep into his bones, Frederick had gotten to his marrow, he was sure of it, the ungentle _pull_ of him into the monster's mouth-

Sam rolled to his other side, curled in, but it was just a brief moment to collect himself.

If Dean wasn't here, if he'd just dreamed all this up, then whatever he did next didn't matter. But if Dean _was_ here, he needed to do his part. He needed a mirror. He needed tainted water. And he needed to stay awake.

Frederick had a mirror. He'd been planning to kill her.

Sam eyed the bowl with his own blood in it warily, but it was the only vessel he could reach. When it was clean, he poured the contents of one of the water bottles Constance kept under his cot into it. Ritually tainted water required fresh blood, three drops. Sam took a deep breath.

* * *

Dean raced down the stairs toward Cas' panicked voice - _kind of_ panicked, he was still getting the hang of his shiny new human emotional parts, so it came out a bit like he was overly concerned about being constipated. When he found them, Cas had his angel blade out, facing off against not-Sam, who had apparently decided Sam's size and strength was pretty useful.

The sight of Cas threatening even fake-Sammy was too terrible. Dean launched himself from the staircase onto fake-Sam's back, bony shoulders digging into his chest, but he still had a bit of bulk, he still had size on his side, and of course, he wasn't _him_ at all, he was this fenix bitch, complete with strength of her own, and speed and claws. She reached backward for Dean, four long lines of agony up his side where she'd caught him. She shook him off and he fell to the floor, breath knocked out of him, fire up his back, fuck-

And then Constance was at his side. Blood covered her face, over one eye, a long tear across it, down her face and neck, crossing that pink scar which disappeared under her shirt, and she tried to help him up.

The fenix whirled to face Cas, Cas distracted by Dean, and she swiped the angel blade from his hand. She was backing him up against the stack of boxes.

"He is _my_ king," she said, in Sam's low breathy voice, that earnestness that Sam wore like a mantle. She was _sincere_ about it, the way Sam was sincere about everything. "You can't take him from me. I want to-" She turned to include Dean. She thought she could _persuade_ them. "I want to give him everything. You - you barely even like him! I _love_ him-"

"I've seen your _love_ , lady," Dean said. "Believe me, Sam isn't that kinky."

"He didn't cooperate. That doesn't mean I don't love him."

White hot rage, Dean shifted it to simmer, just a hunt, no room for a personal vendetta when Sam was upstairs passed out in his own blood, nevermind that she thought Dean didn't _like_ Sam, nevermind nevermind, she had worse to answer for- "You're lucky he's still alive," he ground out, backing toward the stairs. _Come on. Come after the big game, lady. There's a mirror with your name written all over it upstairs._ "Or this would be about a hundred times messier-"

"Like you can beat _me_ ," she said, husky the way Sam got when he got all high horsey, amped up in battle the way he did sometimes, shoulders and chest heaving, the way that made Dean swell with pride because Sam was _in_ , Sam was backing him up. But just now, it took everything he had not to leap at her again and throttle her for daring to use Sam's likeness that way. She turned toward him, zeroed in on him.

"Oh I'll do a lot worse. But first I think you should know the truth." He backed toward the stairs again, cautious. Behind her, Cas was getting the girl to her feet and moving her away. "I just had a little chat with your boy in there. Turns out, he hates every single one of you. He never would have helped you of his own free will and I think you know it. Know why?"

The set of not-Sam's shoulders went rigid, Sam in hunter mode, prowling toward Dean with his head lowered, watching, lip curled up as he tried to rein in his anger, it came rolling off in waves.

"It's because you _disgust_ him. Come on, you're a shapeshifter. You gotta be able to read him well enough to know _that_."

"He would have come around." She stalked toward him, tense, ready. "Once we gave him a kingdom worth reigning over. God-king, that boy. Ushering souls to hell himself, so many he'd be able to take over hell too. It's his _destiny_ -"

"Oh." Dean laughed. "Now _that's_ funny. Haven't done your homework, have you?" he said, stepping up the stairs. "Me and Sam? We screw destiny as a _hobby_. And you? You're small potatoes. You're just a half-rate mongrel shapeshifter. Now if you'll excuse me-"

He turned and ran up the stairs, beating feet. The red-faced fenix started after him a moment later, hopefully caught up in confusion long enough that Dean had some seconds on her. She was fast, faster than Dean, but he tossed some of the disintegrating storage boxes into her path from the second floor lobby, and again from the third floor, and got back to Sam while she was shrieking about the obstacles in the stairwell. She'd be good and mad.

Sam was where Dean had left him, shifted now onto his side with a small mirror in his hand. The bowl with his blood - _oh my fucking -_ had been cleaned, red-soaked cloth from the dead monster's shirt tossed nearby, red red red spreading all around. Sam had filled the bowl with fresh water from a crumpled water bottle, a couple drops of deep red bleeding into pink in the center. Sam's fingertips were red, the wound in his side had started to bleed freely again. They'd have to deal with that in a minute. For now, Dean thrust his hands into the ritually tainted water.

" _Sanguis sanctus_ ," Sam mumbled. His eyes hadn't even been open, but somehow he knew Dean was there and needed him. The pink-tinged water over his hands didn't change, but it would work, it would work because it had to god damn it.

Dean pulled his hands from the water just in time for the fenix to appear in the doorway. She launched herself onto him, Sam-ish bulk latched onto his back and threatening to take him down, but he reached up and back and got his freshly sanctified hands on her and she went frozen. Dean pivoted and turned her over his shoulder. As long as his wet hands were on her, she was more or less helpless and she came down with all the weight Sam would have, but graceless, a thump on the thin-carpeted flooring.

Sam turned the mirror feebly, eyes open to slits as he watched. He tried to face the glass toward her, and Dean dragged her to meet Sam halfway, held her down.

"Hit it, Sam," he growled low.

The fenix's hands scrabbled at the carpet, claws digging in but weakly as Sam mumbled under his breath, latin sounding Dean thought, he never could remember it, they hadn't fought a fenix in _ages_ , but of course Sam hadn't forgotten. Her form under him shrank, slow but sure, until she was a slim woman, slimmer than human, all muscle with feline features, and a bright bright tail flashing in the afternoon sun, soft bristle-

"Copper, Dean," Sam complained.

"I got it, god. Like you don't know how awesome I am or something." Dean pulled his blade from his thigh sheath. Sam frowned at it, doubtful. "Just watch." Dean sliced through the base of the tail, the fenix shrieked and went limp. Dean held up the blade. Two copper wires ran the length of the flat, up either side of the blade. "Copper through the wound, should do just as good as a copper blade, right? It's cool, you can applaud me," he said, tossing the tail and shoving the body away from Sam.

Sam was still muttering under his breath, but he didn't look like a whiny child anymore, his eyes had closed to slits again and he was unfocused. Dean put his hand on Sam's shoulder to shake him awake, _gently_ okay, but still, he needed to stay conscious. As soon as he touched him, though, Sam gasped in a breath-

"I didn't, Dean, I didn't-"

"Calm down, little brother," Dean said.

"I knew you'd come..."

"Course I came. Okay, come on. Can you sit up?"

Sam nodded, but he didn't move. Kid was beat to hell, but Dean already knew that. He pulled out his phone, speed dial 4 -

"Crowley. Warehouse, now, back stairwell, third floor in the back. I want you here ten minutes ago."

Sam was talking again, softly. Not to Dean, to someone else.

Right. Fuck. Great timing, Satan.

"Eyes on me, Sammy," Dean said softly. He put his hand on Sam's hip, gave it a little shake. Sam's eyes squeezed shut. "Easy, you're okay. We're gonna get some drugs in ya, put you in your own bed." Footsteps pounded up the stairs toward them. "You'll be resting easy before you know it."

"No. No." Sam opened his eyes, caught his breath, steeled himself, put himself away. Dean recognized him doing it even in a tangled bloody mess on the floor. He looked up at Crowley. "Dungeon. Dungeon, now."

"What?"

"Dean. Please." Sam wouldn't meet Dean's eye.

"No-"

"You _have_ to."

"Sam, if you're worried about - I mean, you don't _want_ it, so you just won't drink it, right?"

Sam laughed, broken hopeless echoing. "It's more complicated than that." He closed his eyes, laid his head down onto the rough carpet. "I can feel it." He could have been moments from sleep, how quiet he was. "You don't know, you don't know, what this is like. The power - But I couldn't even - there's no winning, Dean, there's no winning for me, I can't I can't-"

"Okay, settle down." Dean shifted to block Sam from Cas and Crowley's view. Sam was out of his head, he didn't need them seeing... whatever the fuck this was. He patted Sam on the neck, rapid heartbeat there. "We'll figure it out, Sam. This isn't your fault. Do you hear me? It's not your fault. And we'll get through this together."

"No. Dungeon. Now."

* * *

Dean sat at the bar in town, nursing a beer. His back burned where the fenix had torn into him. The only person back at the bunker who was any good at giving stitches was currently passed right the fuck out.

Which was a good thing. But still.

His phone buzzed. He knew who it was before even looking, answered it. "What."

" _Careful, I'm gonna think you don't like taking my calls_."

"Cut the cute, sweetheart, and tell me what you want."

Abaddon laughed. " _No thanks for putting you on the right path to Sammy? I'm hurt. But I can see you're having a rough day. So fine, let's get down to business. You met a girl yesterday who tried to help Sam-_ "

"No dice. I don't know where she is now."

" _Oh, that's lucky. I do. I'll text you the address. Leave the heart somewhere I'll see it._ "

"She helped Sam. He'd never forgive me-"

" _You're going to put your need for forgiveness over his safety? Some Righteous Man-"_

"Would everyone stop _calling_ me that!"

The bar around him went quiet. Dean resettled himself, turned to try to escape the stares. "Look, fine. Whatever. You want me to throw myself on this pyre and I get it. You're gonna keep playing the keep Sammy safe card, and I'm gonna keep fallin' for it. But let's not do this song and dance anymore, okay? Just text me the addresses and I'll leave you the hearts, and we can stop _bantering_."

The line was quiet. Then: " _As you like it. I'll be in touch._ "


End file.
